Chapter Nineteen #3
Two days later, Marcy Dane stood in a stark, white visitation room. She wore a tailored black coat, her dark hair pulled back into a sleek, severe knot. She was the picture of composed unshakeable strength.
A wall of thick, reinforced, soundproof glass separated the visitation room from the small observation deck.
Inside the observation room, standing in the shadows, were Kade, Cruz, and Kinsley. Connor and Leon flanked the doorway, their arms crossed over their chests.
The metal door on the opposite side of the visitation room clanked open. Two armed guards escorted Gabriela Monroe into the room.
The sight of the former golden girl was shocking. Gabriela was dressed in a standard-issue grey jumpsuit. Her blonde hair was matted and unkempt. She was gaunt, her skin pale and sallow. But her eyes were wild, manic, and burning with a desperate, delusional hope.
The moment Gabriela saw Marcy, a frantic, hysterical smile broke across her face.
"Marcy!" Gabriela gasped, lunging toward the metal table bolted to the floor, her hands slamming flat against the surface. The guards tensed, but Gabriela only stared at the woman sitting across from her. "You came! I knew you would come. I told them you wouldn't abandon me!"
Marcy didn't flinch. She sat perfectly still, her hands resting calmly on the table. She looked at Gabriela not with hatred, but with chilling indifference.
"I knew you'd realize the truth," Gabriela babbled, her voice rising in a frantic, breathy pitch, playing the victim card with practiced desperation.
"I knew once she was out of the way, you’d see how she poisoned you!
She manipulated us, Marcy! She ruined our friendship!
But she's gone now, right? She’s gone, and we can go back.
We can fix this. You can tell Kade to drop the charges. Tell Kade I didn't mean it!"
Gabriela reached across the table, desperately trying to grab Marcy’s hands. "You’re my best friend, Marcy! We’re sisters! Please, you have to save me!"
In the observation room, Kinsley felt Cruz tense violently beside her, his jaw locking at the sound of the woman’s voice.
But in the visitation room, Marcy slowly deliberately pulled her hands back, folding them in her lap, completely out of Gabriela’s reach.
"We are not sisters, Gabriela," Marcy’s voice cut through the sterile air of the room. It was not loud, but it was incredibly sharp, carrying the lethal weight of finality.
Gabriela froze, the manic smile faltering. "What?"
"You did not love me," Marcy continued, her dark eyes locking onto the unhinged heiress, dissecting her with surgical precision.
"You used me. You fed on my loyalty to mask your own inadequacies.
You needed a charity case to stand next to, so you could feel superior.
And when Kade finally looked past your illusions and saw me, you couldn't handle it.
You didn't frame me because of Kinsley. You framed me because you are fundamentally hollow. "
"No!" Gabriela shrieked, panic flaring in her wild eyes as the delusion began to violently crack. "That isn't true! She poisoned you!"
"Kinsley is alive," Marcy stated, the words dropping like stones onto the metal table.
Gabriela gasped, all the color draining from her sallow face. She stumbled backward, shaking her head frantically. "No. No, I shot her. I saw her fall!"
"She is alive, and she is whole," Marcy said, her voice a cold, unyielding blade, stripping away the last remaining shreds of Gabriela's fantasy. "Kinsley survived. She is returning to our home. She is marrying Cruz Tate. And I am marrying Kade Lancaster."
Gabriela let out a raw, guttural sound of sheer agony, her hands flying to her head as her twisted reality shattered into a million irreparable pieces.
Marcy stood up from the metal table. She looked down at the hysterical, broken woman writhing in the chair.
"You did not break us, Gabriela," Marcy said softly, delivering the final, lethal blow to the Monroe legacy. "You only proved how incredibly insignificant you truly are. I am never coming back here. You will spend the rest of your life in this box, and we will never, ever think of you again."
Marcy turned on her heel, her tailored coat swishing around her calves, and walked toward the metal door without looking back once as Gabriela’s hysterical, echoing screams filled the concrete room.
In the observation deck, the silence was deafening.
Kinsley was staring through the glass, her jaw slightly unhinged. A slow, brilliant, profoundly amused smirk spread across her face. "Remind me to never, ever cross her."
Kade Lancaster stood paralyzed, staring at the door Marcy had just walked through. The sheer, awe-inspiring strength of the woman he loved left him completely breathless. Cruz let out a low whistle of pure respect.
Connor and Leon exchanged a terrified, reverent look.
"She is magnificent," Leon whispered, thoroughly intimidated.
"She’s terrifying," Connor agreed, stepping back from the glass. "I am never leaving my coffee mugs in the sink again."